Go Tutorials Home Adventure Music Mark Lovegrove explains just how easy it is to create a soundtrack. There are very few tutorials on the net for making music or a soundtrack to a point and click adventure game, and the one's I read never tell you how to do it. Therefore, I'm going to give you as clear pointers as I can, so you can walk away from this tutorial and actually compose something. Of course, they're just pointers - enabling you to define your own styles etc, but I thought I'd go through some of the key elements to making in-game music. Before I begin, I must stress that I'm not going to teach you how to make music. That's up to you to learn. Learning the piano is one of the best ways to understand how music works and how to read and compose music. You're sure to find someone who teaches in the Yellow Pages or similar. I strongly reccommend it if you've never composed music before in your life. Otherwise, you could take my approach which is not having enough time for lessons, and learning yourself. However, the first method is guaranteed to help you make great music, the latter is not. We're going to be looking at the following; Themes The Main Theme Repeating the Main Theme Character Themes Location Themes Memorable Moment Themes Background Music Rooms vs Locations Composing To Locations Sounds Within Music Cut-Scenes Intros & Outros Medleys The Developer & Musician Should Be Friends Common Practice The Developers Composition Examples An Introduction Back in the early days of point and click adventures, games like The Secret Of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade placed pieces of music sparsly about the game. One in every five locations or so may have a tune, but everywhere else was silence. Day Of The Tentacle took a completely different method, with music almost everywhere in the game. And another, Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis mixed a Williams-style soundtrack with ambient sounds incorporated into the music files (which were MIDI). Deciding which style you'll go for is up to you, the developer - but there are certain ground rules you, your musician or you AS a musician should remember; Never use a different tune for every different room. Not only does it frustrate and annoy the player, but it also means the composer has to create lots and lots of tunes. The best option is to create tunes for "locations" (see "Rooms vs Tunes" in section 2). Try not to create a complex, heavy tune for locations where the player is in control. Keep the number of instruments fairly minimal or quiet. Try to keep the tune changing. There is nothing worse than a tune that repeats itself over and over (I made this mistake when making the soundtrack to The Adventures of Fatman). Always try and link the music to what is going on. If you're in a haunted house, with a headless ghoul in front of you, the last thing the player wants to hear is S Joplin's "The Entertainer". With those simple ground rules in place, you've got the skeleton of what could be a great soundtrack when fleshed out. But don't worry, making music for adventure games isn't quite that gory ;) 1) Themes The Main Theme Almost every game I've played has some form of main theme - be it Indy's theme, the theme to Day Of The Tentacle or the Monkey Island theme, all games have some form of riff or tune that makes an appearance right at the start of the game and is then used throughout the soundtrack in various different ways. A good thing to remember is that theme tunes should be catchy. When repeated later in the game, the player will be reminded of the theme and it'll get stuck in their head - then at a later date if they hear the tune again somewhere, they'll know exactly where its from. This also works in the developers favour too, enabling their players to have something to remind them of the game they played. Everyone loves a good theme tune, but there are certain things you should remember when composing one. A theme tune should never be too long. Like a monologue, the more of it there is, the harder it is to learn and remember. Theme tunes generally tend to last no longer than two minutes, which gives the "main riff" time to repeat one or two times. Like normal songs, theme tunes also comply of "verses" and "choruses", where the chorus is the really catchy bit, and the verse is the not-so-catchy bit but just-as-cool bit. The best time to use a theme tune is during the opening titles or the game-menu. The first is certainly the better choice, but sometimes some games do not have opening credits or titles and therefore it's best to hammer it in as near to the start of the game as possible - the menu being one of the first things the player comes across. Repeating The Main Theme As I mentioned earlier, there will be points in the game when the main theme makes a return, even if it's just briefly or whether its a reprise or alterered version of the main theme. My advice is that you decide carefully where and when to use it. Take Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis for example. When Indy is looking around, scratching his nose and fiddling with his fedora, we don't hear his theme, yet when he does something recognisably "Indiana Jones-ish", we get a brief fanfare of his theme. Say your game was called "The Smith Documents". You may decide to have a theme tune for the game. When - and if, the player comes across the actual object; the documents, then would be a good time to replay the main theme or riff. Another example, you've got a game called "Hunt For The Missing Shoe". When the player comes across the missing shoe, or the storyline/plot advances, give them a short blast of the main theme to hammer in how the name of the game relates to what they're actually doing. It doesn't necessarily have to be repeated when it's related to something on screen, but you'll often find that main theme repeats are only ever used during cut-scenes, dialogs or storyline/plot advances. Character Themes It's often the case that designers ask their composers to create a theme for a character in the game - this is a heavily used method when it comes to composing for point and click adventures. Everyone remembers the tunes for LeChuck and Largo Legrande, the theme for Indiana Jones and so on. Like main themes, character themes need to be catchy. That way, when the player hears it - they know who's coming or who it relates too. There aren't really any rules for character themes, but I will mention a couple: Try not to repeat the main theme in a character theme, it can subconciously confuse the player. Character themes really do need to reflect the character. A bad guy may have a dark, mysterious theme where as the love-interest character may have a heavenly sounding theme. Like the main theme, don't overuse the character themes. Play them on a characters entrance or exit for maximum effect rather than the whole time that character is on screen. When character themes are repeated, they are usually almost exactly the same as the original. Very rarely will you hear a character theme changed. Whereas the main theme might vary from major to minor key, the character themes often remain in the same key and what not. This may for some be a matter of preference, but at the same time it makes sense to keep the theme sounding the same - it acts like a product/brand name. When you hear it, you know it straight away. You may then ask "So surely we shouldn't vary the main theme". Not true. The main theme is probably going to make many more appearances throughout the game than any character themes, so to ease on the players ears, you'd probably want to vary the main theme more. Location Themes As with character themes, often locations have their own catchy tunes. You'll remember the theme to Stans Used Ships yard in Monkey Island 2: LeChucks Revenge and so on. Sometimes its right to give a location a theme, sometimes it's not. Key locations to the game often have their own theme, which then probably fade out as you explore the location further. When it comes to location themes, the rules are similar to character themes. Make it catchy, don't over-use it and don't use it anywhere else in the game other than that location (unless of course say, the player-character recognises something from an earlier location). Memorable Moment Themes Every game has memorable moments, and the best way to make them most memorable is to give them some accompnyment. The Bones song from Monkey Island II, Hoagie surfing the Chron-O-John in DOTT and so forth. These tunes are often much harder to compose than the rest of the in-game music, as they really have to stand out. They don't have to be catchy necessarily, but being able to associate music with an event is something the player will treasure forever. When they chat with their friends about "Remember that bit when Bob's pants fell off in Bob Quest IV!?", when they think about it, they'll have the tune in their head. 2) Background Music Composing to backgrounds can sometimes seem like you're composing a theme tune for the word "the", or composing a tune for a tree, or a skyscraper. Assigning background music to locations can be hard, but if you think about it thoroughly, you'll find it surprisingly easier. I don't really need to One of the trickiest things to master is good background music. Often the player doesn't want to hear any music and just wants to get on with the puzzles, yet at other times, the player doesn't want to feel solitary. These are two main issues when you look at rooms verses locations. I'm going to stray off music-making for just a moment... Rooms vs Locations What is a room and what is a location? In a developers point of view (and this is generally the opinion of all point and click developers), a room is each induvidual screen. A location is, like in a film, the actual place where the character is. The player-characters bedroom would be room 1, and the hallway outside would be room 2. A different angle of the hallway (but still the SAME hallway) would be room 3. The location, on the largest scale would probably be the "player-characters house", and on a smaller scale "the upstairs of the player-characters house". Imagine a brain storm. The central point we would consider to be the "location", and the parts branching off would be rooms. Assigning a piece of background music to all of these "rooms" would become really annoying, especially if there was a lot of locations in the game! The best way to avoid this problem is to "group" certain rooms to smaller areas of the location. For example; The "dig-site" has become a smaller location, as has the "barrier". What we now see, is that only three background tunes will be needed instead of the original 8, had we have made a tune for every room. For games where a small location is used; ...it would be perfectly acceptable to have one tune to cover the three places. I hope that made sense! Composing To Locations Sometimes it can seem that composing to locations is rather like composing a theme tune for the word "the", or composing a theme tune for a brick, or a rip in your jeans. Assigning music to innanimate objects, things and locations sounds hard - but it's easy to master. Every location will have a mood, or a cultural or social link to music. They're not hard to mix either. Moods (often related to what is visible on screen) A carnival or funfair: Light hearted, possibly energetic A dark forest: Slow and mysterious A space station: Futuristic sounding A castle: Medievil sounding A restaraunt or bar: Jolly, up-beat Styles (often relate to the game's plot or setting) A game about the Carribean: Reggae A game about a hi-tech conspiracy: Techno A game about your parents: Classical A game about a teenage bum: Rock A game about an adventure: Orchestral A game about Intel Pentium processors: Synths Start by selecting a preliminary style. Your developer/designer may already have ideas about this. For every mood, refer to the preliminary style. Can it be used for this mood? Will it fit? It not, see the next point. It is not essential to stick a preliminary style depending on the mood. For example, you might have a Wild West shop in the middle of the African Desert, yet it would still seem right to change your primary style (which would probably be 'ethnic' in this case) to a secondary style, 'ragtime'. NOW you can call in S Joplin. 3) Sounds Within Music One of the things you'll remember a lot of point and click adventures used to do was mix sound effects within the music tracks. Normally, this occurred when the music was in MIDI format. It was okay back then, when everyone's MIDI sounded the same - but these days its VERY risky to put sound effects within a music file if its MIDI. Musicians used to use MIDI instruments to create the sounds of birds, insects, waves etc. Nowadays, it's best not too. On the developers side of view, it is obviously best to keep music and sound effects / ambient sounds seperate, for the sake of diversity. So, what's the alternative? I'd advise minimalistic tunes. See what works best for you. x) Cut Scenes Composing to a cut-scene is in my opinion probably the most rewarding part of composing to a point and click adventure. Cut-scenes are often considered to be the "players reward" for solving a puzzle, and so it's a great time to show off your musical talent. Cut-scene music is often much easier to compose than background music, for the simple fact that you can usually be very creative, and you actually have actions and animations to compose too and bring to life. Although a lot of cut-scenes include dialog, they're also a great way for the developer to add in animations and such. Therefore, there is a lot of "silent time" so far as the character is concered. They're not speaking, they're doing stuff - and musical accompniment is often required. Intros & Outros These are the two points in the game that you will probably find you may need to compose a very long piece of music. Outros are often longer than intros, some stretching up to 10 minutes in length. There isn't much advice I can give on it, but I will advise that the outro is a good time to repeat other themes in the game. But don't just dump them in, set them in nicely to the style of the outro tune. Medley's Always a fun part of composing, once you've made the all the music, you may well be asked to create a medley to play during the end credits. Don't go mad with medleys. Don't just stick in every tune you used in the game in a medley, select three or four of your favourite tunes or the tunes you are most proud with from the game, no matter whether they are cut-scene pieces or background pieces. Finish off the medley with a reprise of the main theme too. x) The Developer & Musician Should Be Friends Common Practice The designer/developer and musician should be in contact with each other all the time when the music is being composed for an adventure game. Music files should be bounced back and forth between the two (or the team), the musician should be given comments and critique and the designer/developer should always have the appropriate information for the musician to follow. Although a lot of smaller projects ask for musicians to start composing near the start of development, the best time (in my experience) to start composing music is about half way to three quarters of the way through the games development. This way, there will be plenty for the musician to see. Perhaps screenshots, a playable version etc. Starting composing too early means the musician will find himself mixing projects up together, or having large gaps of doing nothing - of which both cases can result in the fluidness of the soundtrack to veer off. It may sound different, the composer may have gotten better at composing and therefore he or the developer would want the earlier tracks to be remastered. It can often be a pain. The Developers Composition As the composer, you should always listen to what the designer/developer wants. It is NOT your game, (unless you are the designer too!) and therefore you should try your best to meet the designers needs. However, you're more than welcome to be pushy and state your case, especially for the following: If the developer has asked for an un-realistic amount of tunes, (I was once asked for 300 MIDI's) then TELL them that you won't be able to do it. Don't say yes and not get it done. Discuss ways with the developer to work around having to make 300 tunes - for example, using the Rooms vs Locations method. Make sure the developer has given you detailed descriptions of what he/she wants. "I need a tune for a church" is no good. "I need a tune for a darkly lit Church, in which the player discovers a dead body" is much better. Get screenshots. Play something. I often prefer it when the developer sends me a list of the tunes they want with descriptions for each. Get to know what happens in the location you're composing for, what it looks like etc. Although this could be argued, I believe it is up to the developer to name the lengths of the tunes for say a cut-scene. It shouldn't be your job to time a cut-scene and note the key points, it should be theres. Just a simple text with the times of the events that happen (mm:ss) is all the composer needs. If you get asked to compose for a cut-scene, ask for timings. x) Examples I thought I'd finish up with some examples of good and bad pieces of adventure game music. I'm going to use my music, so that I don't offend anyone.

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